Doctors and patients in Chinese hospitals will be required to sign a declaration banning the payment of cash-filled “red packets” and other gifts from May 1, according to a National Health and Family Planning Commission’s directive. Patients must also sign it and promise not to give gifts. Many patients worry about medical standards if doctors don’t receive gifts. Chinese doctors are paid less than CNY10,000 a month, so a red packet containing CNY1,000 or CNY2,000 is a temptation some doctors find hard to resist.

Industry and commerce enforcement officials in Siping city, Jilin province, with the help of inspectors from Procter & Gamble China, recently cracked down on two local stores selling counterfeited cosmetics and cleaning products. They seized a total of 40 boxes of faked shampoo, face cleansers and makeup infringing a number of brands under P&G, such as Pantene, VS and Rejoice, as well as other famous brands like Proya and Lancome.

China’s machinery industry last year showed a slow but steady recovery from a previous plunge in the sector, as the upgrading of products and industrial structure advanced in 2013. The sector’s revenues from its main business totaled CNY20.4 trillion last year, up 13.8% year-on-year and growing slightly faster than in 2012. Aggregate profits across the sector rose 15.6% year-on-year to CNY1.41 trillion, over 10 percentage points higher than in 2012. The sector exported products worth USD372.5 billion in 2013, up 6.24% from the previous year, with the trade surplus at USD73.6 billion – the largest on record. China’s private machinery enterprises began to focus more on the overseas market as domestic demand dwindled. In 2013, private companies’ total profits earned from their main business jumped 15.4% to CNY11.6 trillion, above the cross-sector growth rate. Their output in value accounted for over half of the total industrial output of the sector.

Goldleaf Jewelry, a Chinese jewelry retailer with gold-mining investments, plans to buy United States oil and gas operator ERG Resources for at least USD665 million. The Beijing-based company said it would pay for the acquisition with a private share placement, raising as much as CNY5.7 billion from no more than 10 investors. Goldleaf will hold a 95% stake in Texas-based ERG after the purchase. Buying closely held ERG would give Goldleaf a foothold in oil assets on the U.S. Gulf Coast and California, adding to USD16 billion of oil and gas deals announced by Chinese companies in the past year. ERG sold 13 oilfields to Australia’s Linc Energy in 2011 for USD236 million. Goldleaf, which suspended its shares on January 1, resumed trading in Shenzhen. It surged the daily limit of 10% to CNY13.77 in the morning session. The company generated CNY8.7 billion of sales in 2012 and had CNY1.9 billion of assets at the end of that year.

PetroChina and China Petroleum & Chemical (Sinopec) are expected to trim spending in the next few years. Contributing factors are flat oil prices, rising debt, slowing growth in demand and excess capacity in oil refining and chemicals. Lower spending on expansion and a change in focus to quality rather than the growth rate may end seven years of declining returns, according to Analyst Neil Beveridge, the principal author of a Sanford Bernstein research report. He said the firms’ total capital expenditure may have peaked at CNY520 billion in 2012 and projected it would fall to CNY480 billion this year. While the two oil and gas majors budgeted total spending of CNY537 billion last year, he expected PetroChina to report next month a “significant reduction” in actual spending from the level in 2012 and Sinopec to report flat spending. A Sinopec Spokesman said: “The company will be more focused on quality and efficiency of capital expenditure in 2014, and not regard scale expansion as an objective.” Beveridge said the two firms are playing catch-up to Western counterparts in embracing “a new paradigm that big is no longer beautiful”, especially given market expectations that oil prices will be flat and a steady rise in operating costs over the next few years. This will push them to become less capital-intensive, less acquisitive, more cost-conscious and more open to disposal of under-performing assets, Beveridge said. PetroChina has delayed three new refineries or expansion projects owing to overcapacity.